From Tim:

“The history of Somerville, 2010-2100″ is a community art project that is exploring what the future might be like. Both the book and the website present what we’ve found by talking to Somerville community members about the future. In the book and website, you’ll also find official government plans, think tank vision statements, and various ideas and concerns about the future from various other sources.

The Timeline section presents this material as a single timeline. In the Predictions Archive section, you’ll find the actual predictions that community members made.

We’ll be collecting predictions until the end of the year. If you’d like to make a prediction, please email Tim at future.of.somerville@gmail.com . All participants will receive full credit for their images, concepts, stories, and data. All material received by Dec. 31, 2010 will appear on the project’s website and in the final version of the book.

This project is organized by Tim Devin, and is sponsored in part by the Somerville Arts Council. The project is also on Facebook.

To download a free PDF of the book, click here: http://timdevin.com/historyofsomerville.pdf
To view the project’s website, click here: http://timdevin.com/historyofsomerville.html

I was reading the Wikipedia entry on Stuyvesant Heights, Brooklyn, when I came across the section describing the meandering border. I decided to quickly throw it into Google Maps to see what it would look like…. and then just kept going. Like with all maps of neighborhoods this map generalizes the borders to some extent and excludes some micro-hoods to keep things simple. There is always some overlap and argument but I decided just to use the most widely held definitions of the borders. I really made this because all online mapping services don’t really do a good job of defining neighborhoods (Google, what the hell is “Adelphi”? No one in Brooklyn calls it that.) Download this and use it whenever anyone asks where a particular ‘hood is.

I’ll keep updating this with bits of information on each ‘hood.

Click here to download for Google Earth.

NYC Subway Expansion plans from 1951

In my last post I outlined the ambitious plan to massively expand the New York City subway system. For various reasons (the Great Depression, World War II, rise of suburbia, etc) the plans were, for the most part, never realized. After World War II many plans were scrapped as limited resources were diverted to building new highways. Plans for the Second Ave subway stayed on the table but were cut back again and again as the years went on (this will be covered further in my next two posts). Some minor expansion took place but the system also lost many miles of track as older elevated lines were removed.

In 1968 the city developed a new, much less ambitious, plan to expand subway service and rebuild aging infrastructure. In an unfortunate case of history repeating itself the city immediately faced a financial crisis causing the plans to be scrapped and subway service to be cut. For the next 20 years the city planned, for the first time ever, to decrease in size and services. It wasn’t until the 1990s, when the population stabilized and the economy of the city began to grow, when serious plans for expansion were brought back.

But just as things were looking up for the city the terrible events of September 11th caused many to fear that these gains were to be temporary and that the city would continue its former population exodus. Due to the resolve of the people of New York and strong political leadership the exact opposite has happened; Today the city has a larger population than at any point in its history and for the first time in decades it is needing to plan for expansion of services and infrastructure. The Second Ave subway, which had broken ground twice in its 80 year history, finally has funding and is well under construction. The same for an extension of the 7 Line to the Far West Side of Manhattan, and the long awaited East Side Access project to bring Long Island Railroad cars into Grand Central Terminal.

Chrystie Street Connection

Chrystie St Connection: Before and After. Click for animation.

The Chrystie Street connection was a small but very significant expansion project that more than any other after World War II changed how the New York City subway was operated and, due to foresight, left the door open for connections to Brooklyn from a still-to-be-built Second Ave subway.

To understand the implications of such a project you need to see what the system looked like before 1967. When the BMT first built it’s subway into downtown Manhattan it did so in 3 parts. The section known as the Broadway line which, as the name suggests, runs under Broadway and then under Church St, runs through the Financial District where it dives under the East River to downtown Brooklyn (today’s R,W line). The second part was via the Williamsburg Bridge, a connection already established when the bridge was completed, with a new subway under Delancey and Centre Streets to a major terminal at Chambers St (today’s J,Z line). With the construction of the Manhattan Bridge, with a capacity of 4 subway lines, the BMT was able to connect the previous two subways with a third over the bridge. One line would use the bridge and head north via Broadway (today’s N,Q line) while the other would use the bridge to head south via Centre St. A new subway under Nassau St would then allow trains to loop from the Manhattan Bridge, through downtown, and back into Brooklyn via the tunnel (this was known at the time as the Nassau Loop).

1951 plans for the Second Ave subway and connection to Brooklyn

Due to the growth of midtown Manhattan in the middle of the 20th Century, the Nassau Loop soon began to lose ridership and was eventually cut back to part-time service. Planners saw the need to increase service to midtown and saw the tracks on the Manhattan Bridge as underutilized. Elsewhere in the system was a section of subway that was able to increase in capacity, the IND 6th Ave line, recently outfitted with an express track from West 4th St to 34th St. As outlined in the Second System plan, this express track was to be used for trains to Williamsburg but that subway was never constructed. Seeing an inexpensive way to improve service from Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan, the new Transit Authority developed plans to connect the 6th Ave subway to both the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge with a new subway under Chrystie St in the Lower East Side. A very forward-thinking benefit to this short subway is that it allows further connection to the Second Ave subway so that trains can connect directly to Brooklyn via the Manhattan Bridge. A new station at Grand St is said to have been built to allow 2 additional tracks to be built on the outsides of the platforms when the Second Ave subway is constructed. This new connection allowed for more trains to travel from southern Brooklyn to midtown and also allowed for direct service from northern Brooklyn to midtown. The latter service, known at the time as the “K” train, was only used for a few years due to rapid depopulation in neighborhoods in northern Brooklyn (I talk about the possibility of bringing this service back in an earlier post).

63rd St Tunnel and Archer Ave Subway

Transit Authority plan for mass transit expansion.

The 63rd St tunnel (today’s F Line to Queens) and Archer Ave subway (E,J in Jamaica) were planned as part of a much larger project to build a super-express subway from Jamaica, Queens to midtown Manhattan. As Queens grew in population after World War II new subway service lagged far behind. To address this, a new subway line to run parallel to the Long Island Railroad Mainline through Queens was to be built with connections to Jamaica and Far Rockaway. Many different plans bounced back and forth for years (the 63rd St tunnel was planned as far north as 76th St and as far south as 59th St). In 1963 a patchwork of various plans were brought together to connect midtown Manhattan to Queens with a super-express subway and to connect the Long Island Railroad into Grand Central Terminal with a new 4 track tunnel under the East River.

The first part was a new tunnel into Manhattan that would connect with the BMT Brodaway Line, IND 6th Ave Line, and a commuter rail connection to Grand Central. Starting construction in 1969 this project is actually still under construction! The line terminated at Queensbridge until December 2001 when it was finally extended to connect with the Queens Blvd line. The tunnels and new stations (Lexington-63rd St, Roosevelt Island, Queensbridge-21st St) were opened in 1989, 20 years after construction started due to many delays and funding problems. Today the only train running along the line is the F Line to Queens. A connection to the BMT Broadway Line was constructed from 57th St-7th Ave to 63rd St-Lexington Ave and is only used for storing Q Line trains which terminate at 57th St.

Track map showing 63rd St tunnel and unused tracks. Map by Peter Dougherty.

The station at 63rd St-Lexington Ave has a false wall, behind which is an unfinished platform and tracks that are only open to MTA employees. This non-revenue service track is planned to be connected to the first phase of the Second Ave subway, at which point the unused platform will be opened to the public. If you go to 63rd St station, on the platform, look through the holes in the black doors along the wall and you will see the unused platform, maybe even a train too.

At the same time a second set of tracks were constructed below the subway tracks with the intent to connect the Long Island Railroad with Grand Central Terminal. Though the tracks through the tunnel were built, no connections with either railroad were ever completed. It was only in 2006 when the first new tunnel contract was awarded. Construction has continued and can be viewed by passengers along the N/W line after Queensboro Plaza and a new terminal is being carved out below Grand Central Terminal. Service plans have not been finalized but this project goes a long way towards completing the next phase of the original project, a super-express line through Queens.

East Side Access map. New connections to bring the LIRR into Grand Central.

While a super-express subway was planned to connect with other lines, not as a commuter rail, soon riders from Queens will have a quicker route into midtown Manhattan. The original super-express line was to connect to the 63rd St tunnel in Long Island City and a new subway in Jamaica along Archer Ave. With this subway in place the MTA could have converted some of the Long Island Railroad right-of-ways from commuter rail (or abandonment) into subway service. Routes planned included out to the Rockaways through central Queens and through Locust Manor, along the Main line to Queens Village, and possibly out to St. Albans along the Hempstead line.

None of these plans (save for the Archer Ave subway) ever got out of the planning stages and central and southern Queens still remain lacking in broader subway service. As built the Archer Ave subway connects subways headed to Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan to subways headed to Queens and midtown Manhattan into one terminal. A bi-level tunnel was built, which interestingly does not allow for direct train connections between the two subways, along with 3 new stations.

Planned Queens Super-Express Line. Click for animation

The connection to the Queens Blvd line used an unused stub of track that had been planned for a never built subway under Van Wyck Blvd. The connection the BMT Jamaica line allowed for the elevated tracks running though downtown Jamaica to be torn down. The new tunnels and stations allow for further extension into Jamaica but no serious plans have come forth to do so.

7 Line Extension

Map of 7 Line extension from Times Sq to Hudson Yards (pink square)

The 7 Line extension from Times Sq-42nd St to 34th St and 11th Ave is living proof that subway expansion is possible when there is enough political will. The project as originally planned would extend the line under 41st St with a station at 10th Ave, turning south at 11th Ave with a station at 34th St, and layup tracks as far south as 25th St. The extension was proposed as part of the Hudson Yards redevelopment site, the Long Island Railroad train yards past Penn Station. Original proposals for redevelopment included a new Jets football stadium and a new stadium for the New York City 2012 Olympic Games (which went to London instead). After this, the MTA accepted bids for commercial redevelopment over the yards similar to the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. Eventually a bid was accepted from the Related Companies, however due to the economic recession no work has been done.

Construction on the subway extension has been continuing during this time. Due to lack of funding the station at 10th Ave-41st St was dropped from the final plans, although support for finding funding for the station has begun to build. The extension is rather short but brings up an interesting anecdote about the subway system. In order to build the extension the MTA had to demolish an abandoned subway platform underneath Times Sq. When the IND was building their subway under 8th Ave they built the Times Sq station with three platforms, the two that are in use today, and a third below these. The peculiar thing about it was that there didn’t ever seem to be a reason for the extra platform. The IND built many parts of its system that it intended to build out later (see the previous post on the Second System) but this platform wasn’t one of them. Due to the track configuration the only trains that could enter this extra station were trains coming from Queens which could just as easily stop at the upper platforms (like they do today). The platform was used briefly to shuttle passengers out to the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens but hasn’t seen service since the 1980s. There is an urban legend about this platform, however, from NYCSubway.org:

An oft-repeated story offers this as a reason the lower level was built: The Independent subway was being built by the city to compete directly with routes owned by the IRT and BMT companies. The #7 crosstown IRT line terminates at Times Square; it is said that the bumper blocks of the #7 are directly against or very close to the eastern wall of the lower level of the 42nd St. IND station. The construction of the lower level therefore blocked any potential extension of the #7 line to the west side of Manhattan. If this is true, it would have been done only in the spirit of crushing the competition, for the IND had no plans to construct a competing crosstown line.

This is likely not the case, though the IND did build lines in direct competition to the other systems. Today the superfluous third platform has been demolished and the 7 train will one day soon be extended to the Far West Side of Manhattan, hopefully to help spur development since there isn’t anything there now.

More Information
If you are looking for more information on these projects here are some links that will help you.

• MTA Director calls for ambitious expansion; NYTimes 03/03/08
• IND 63rd St Line, Wikipedia
• Archer Ave Subway, Wikipedia
• 7 Subway Extension, Wikipedia
• 7 Line Extension Project Website, MTA
• East Side Access Project Website, MTA
• East Side Access, Wikipedia
• 1968 MTA Program For Action
• Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel

The futureNYCSubway

1. Introduction
2. IND Second System
3. Post War Expansion
4. The Second Ave Subway: History
5. The Second Ave Subway: To The Bronx and the Nassau Line
6. Brooklyn: Bushwick Trunk Line and Utica Ave Subway
7. Manhattan: Far West Side and Hudson Crossings, TriboroRX
8. Queens: Flushing Trunk Line and Branches
9. Staten Island: The Last Frontier

NYC Subway IND System 1939 via nycsubway.org

The problem with trying to lay out an entire system-wide plan for subway expansion is that the history of New York City’s subway is so complex that, in order to fully understand why certain lines go where they do, you must understand the whole history of the system. There are many many books and websites written about the subway, how it started with 2 companies and then the city built their own line, then combined into the Transit Authority in the late 40s, the creation of the MTA in 1968, the decline of the subway in the 70s and 80s, and how it has came back. There is far too much to have to write about here of the history of the system. Because of this I am going to be jumping right into the first major “future” system plan first dating from 1929, but if you would like some context then there is only one place you need to go:

http://www.nycsubway.org/

This here is the single greatest website on the subject of the NYC subway anywhere on the internet. Everything you would like to know is on there in more detail than you could imagine. For my futureMBTA website I needed to write little histories of each line first but NYC isn’t Boston, there are plenty of transit nerds out there than have written at length about the subway so I’m not going to cover well worn territory.

I realize that many of the neighborhoods and streets covered in this post may not be familiar to even life-long New Yorkers. To help you follow along, if you have Google Earth you can download a version of these maps I made along with my original “New York City subways with other transit”.

• New York City subways with other transit.kml (for Google Earth)
• 1929-1939 IND Second System Proposals.kml (for Google Earth)

The Independent Subway: A Brief Introduction

For a full history of the Independent Subway, see NYC Subway.org

NYC Subway IND (Click for animation)

Before the Independent Subway (IND) there were two transit companies that ran the subways in NYC; the Interborough Rapid Transit Co (IRT) and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Rapid Transit Co (BMT). The MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) phased out these names long ago but old timers still call each line by their original names: The IRT Lexington Ave Line (4,5,6), the IRT 7th Ave Line (1,2,3) and the IRT Flushing Line (7), the BMT Broadway Line (N,Q,R,W), the BMT Canarsie Line (L), the BMT Jamaica Line (J,Z), and the BMT West End, Seabeach and Brighton Beach Lines, among others.

These dueling systems (one had to pay extra to transfer to a different company’s line) were the lifeblood of the city but were not properly serving large sections of the fast growing metropolis. The citizens had a love/hate relationship with the companies and after years of overcrowding the city decided to step in and fund their own, independently run subway system, the Independent (IND).

The IND today is best known as the 8th Ave Line (A,C,E), the 6th Ave Line (B,D,F,V), the Fulton St Line (Brooklyn A,C), the South Brooklyn or Culver Line (F), the Queens Blvd Line (E,F,R,V), and the Crosstown Line (G). Two subways proposed originally in 1922 but never built were a line from Bay Ridge to Staten Island and an extension of the BMT Broadway Line from 7th Ave/59th St to Harlem (both will be discussed here).

From NYC Subway:

John F. Hylan was Mayor for two terms from 1918 to 1925. Legend has it that, as a young locomotive engineer for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT, predecessor to the BMT), he was fired because he exceeded the posted speed operating his train around a curve. He was studying for the bar exam while employed at the BRT. Once he was mayor, he was in a position of power to get even. He regularly made it difficult for the IRT and BRT to expand their lines or obtain funding (the 5 cent fare was a losing proposition and could not be changed without city approval). To get even with the private operators, he wanted a subway run by the city “independent of the traction interests”. In fact, many of the lines the Independent opened were in direct competition with existing lines of the time, and those existing lines ended up being torn down in favor of the Independent lines.

The IND was an instant hit and even inspired the Billy Strayhorn/Duke Ellington hit “Take the A Train”. First proposed in 1922 and opened beginning in 1932, the IND was a modern marvel in terms of planning and design; the stations were larger and were built with express and local stops designed to eliminate the bottlenecks that older express stations had created. While it would be decades until the original IND system was complete, the city early on saw the new system as a huge success and immediately began planning a second system that would reach areas of the city still unserved by the current subways. This plan was known as the IND Second System.

The IND Second System

• Second Ave Trunk Line (Manhattan)
  

  1939 IND Second System plan showing Second Ave subway and Morningside Ave line.

  The most famous, or infamous, part of the Second System was a 4 to 6 track trunk subway running from the Harlem River to Pine St in downtown. It may seem obvious for the need for a second subway line through the east side of Manhattan today but at the time there were actually 3 lines, the Lexington Ave subway and two elevated trains running up 3rd and 2nd Aves. The reason that the Second Ave subway was put off for so long was because the east side was already well served until the 1940s and 1950s when the elevated lines were torn down.

  Because plans for the Second Ave line have been around for so long they have been subject to the most change. Originally the line was to be a 2 track subway from Downtown until Houston St where a second set of tracks joined until 61st St where a planned connection to the 6th Ave line was to come in on another set of tracks, bringing the total tracks through to Harlem to 6. Here the line would continue on to the Bronx as 4 tracks. The idea was for a super-express line that would connect to the 6th Ave line. It is interesting to note that in the original plans there were no connections from Queens. I will cover more of this in my post about the Second Ave Subway (coming soon).

  Two connections that were planned as part of the Second Ave subway were the 61st St line (mentioned above) and a spur at Houston St that would connect with the 6th Ave line as it headed into Williamsburg (to be explained below). Updated proposals for the next 30 years moved this tunnel further north with a connection to Queens and was eventually the only major section constructed. The 61st St tunnel proposal eventually morphed into the 63rd St tunnel which connects the F line to Queens, opened in 2001. When this tunnel was built there were provisions made to connect the 63rd St tunnel to a future Second Ave subway and to connect the Second Ave subway to the tunnel to Queens.

• Morningside Ave Line (Manhattan)

  Details on this are sketchy but it seems that plans for a line branching off the BMT Broadway Line at 57th St to run into Harlem were proposed even back when the Broadway Line was under construction. In early BMT maps there is shown a small stub past 57th St which represented the actual stub end of the express tracks terminating past the station. The plans called for a 2 track tunnel to run north under Central Park (the park, not Central Park West) and then swing west somewhere in the West 80s. From here the line would head north under, presumably, Columbus Ave and into Morningside Park along Morningside Ave. From here the line would presumably run north along Convent Ave until terminating at 155th St. What is peculiar is that plans for this line were included in the original IND system, dropped in the 1929 plan, but then added again in the 1939 plan.

  The stub end tracks at 57th St were eventually rerouted so they now link up with the 63rd St tunnel (F) as so to allow Broadway trains to run on the Second Ave line when constructed. More about this in my upcoming Second Ave Subway post.

• Utica Ave and Rockaway Lines (Brooklyn)
  

  1929 IND Second System plans with Manhattan connections to the Utica Ave and Rockaway Lines.

  One of the most impressive proposals from the Second System was for a massive 4 to 8 track subway line through Williamsburg with two 4 track spurs branching out into unserved parts of Brooklyn and Queens. The first part of the line was the Utica Ave line which branched off from the 6th Ave line in Manhattan at 2nd Ave and traveled along East Houston and under the East River to Grand Ave in Williamsburg. South of this was the Rockaway Line which branched off the 8th Ave line in Manhattan and swung east under Worth Ave and along East Broadway, under the East River and under Broadway in Williamsburg. These two lines then met up under South 4th St and traveled to Union Ave in an, at one point 4 track and then expanded to 6 track, trunk line. These lines then connected to the Crosstown Line (G) in a massive 4 platform station which was actually built and remains abandoned under the streets of Williamsburg! (Click here for more information)

  From here 8 tracks were planned to run under a new street parallel to Broadway to Beaver St, Bushwick Ave and Myrtle Ave. At Myrtle Ave the two lines branched off in two, 4 track lines; the Utica Ave line tunning south along Utica Ave through Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, and East Flatbush, and the Rockaway line traveling east under Myrtle and Central Aves through Glendale, turning south after Woodhaven Blvd along the LIRR right-of-way to connect to the Rockaways. The Utica Ave line, when it reached Ave S in Flatbush, turned west to connect with an extension of the IRT Flatbush Line (2,5) under Nostrand Ave and together these lines ran to Voorhese Ave in Sheepshead Bay. At one point an additonal tunnel was proposed to branch off here and travel to Queens under Flushing Ave.

  

  1929 IND Second System plan for Rockaways connections. Note that it was assumed that Jamaica Bay would have been built up as a seaport.

  Later plans also included a connection to the Williamsburg Bridge to replace the BMT Jamaica Line (J,M,Z) and added a subway from the Myrtle Ave junction along Bushwick Ave to Broadway Junction. Additional plans included a subway branching off the Crosstown Line (G) under Lafayette Ave which would connect to the Rockaway Line under Myrtle Ave.

  As mentioned, a shell station was actually constructed at the Broadway stop on the Crosstown Line (G). A partial shell station was also constructed at the Utica Ave station on the IND Fulton Ave line (A,C) to service connections to the Utica Ave line. Eventually a subway connection was created to the Rockaways but instead of running into Queens it was truncated back to the Fulton Ave (A,C) line in Ozone Park.

• Bronx Trunk Line

  The Bronx was and still is one of the better served areas of the city in terms of subways but the eastern portion, which at that time had not developed as fast as the western Bronx, was still under served. To address this the Second System proposed a 4 track trunk line into the eastern Bronx. Continuing from the Second Ave subway at the Harlem River, a 4 track subway would have snaked its way north under Alexander Ave and Melrose Ave to 163rd St where the line would split. One branch would head due east under 163rd St to Unionport where it would run under Lafayette Ave to East Tremont St in Throggs Neck.

  

  1929-1939 IND Bronx Lines. The addition of the Dyre Ave line killed plans for a subway under Morris Park Ave.

  The other branch would run north under Boston Post Road to the IRT yards at 180th St. Here the line would run east under Morris Park Ave until about Seminole Ave where it would turn north and run under Wilson Ave to Boston Post Road, turning east to finally terminate at Baychester Ave. However right before the line turned onto Boston Post Road it would connect with an extension of the Concourse Line (B,D) which was to be extended from its terminal at 205th St under Burke Ave to Boston Post Road.

  If you look at the map of the subway today it would seem peculiar to extend the subway into an area that is already covered by the IRT Dyre Ave line (5). What you don’t realize is that the Dyre Ave line (5) wasn’t part of the subway at all at that point and was actually a section of the New York, Westchester, and Boston Railroad. This right-of-way was “captured” by the city after the railroad went bankrupt in 1935. Because of this addition the plans for a subway through this area were dropped and are not found on the updated 1939 map.

• Northern Queens
  

  1939 IND Second System plan for Long Island City

  Keep in mind that most of Queens was developed after World War 2. This means that even before the IND had built its first line Queens was only served by two subway lines, a few commuter railroads, and a number of streetcar lines (as opposed to the innumerable lines that served Manhattan and Brooklyn). The only lines the original IND built were the Queens Boulevard line (E,F,G,R,V) and its extension down Hillside Ave (F), and these stuck close to the LIRR ROW which was already developed. So knowing that Queens was the next place where development was going to occur, the IND proposed extending already built lines out into northern Queens.

  The two subways already there were jointly operated by the IRT and the BMT per agreement in the Dual Contracts (the two contracts the city gave to these competing transit companies in 1913 to stop them from building redundant and competing subways.) The Astoria line (N,W) and the Corona (7), todays Flushing line went through some pretty barren territory but by the 1920s people were streaming out the packed tenement districts into new garden apartments and single family homes in Queens. The IND Second System, which at this point had no control over these two companies, proposed extending both lines further out into northern Queens.

  The Astoria line, which terminated (and still does) at Ditmars Blvd, would have been extended down Ditmars Blvd to Astoria Blvd where it was go from 2 to 4 tracks. It would run down Astoria Blvd through East Corona, elevated, to 112th St where it would turn south and then east across the Flushing River. At this point Flushing Meadow Park was nothing more than a marsh and dumping ground (Robert Moses built the park for the 1939 Worlds Fair). From here it would travel along Horace Harding Blvd, which today is the Long Island Expressway, to Nassau Blvd, todays Francis Lewis Blvd. Later these plans were altered so that instead of extending the elevated line, a new subway would run from Queensboro Plaza under 21st St in Long Island City, then following this same path as a subway but continuing under Horace Harding Blvd to Marathon Parkway.

  The other line, the Corona line, originally terminated at 111th St but had been extended to Flushing/Main St. In the Second System plan it was to be continued parallel to the LIRR Port Washington commuter rail branch out to Bayside, 221st St. Before that, at 149th St, a branch north to Whitestone and College Point was planned. There had at one point been a steam railroad that branched off from the Port Washington track before Flushing and traveled north to College Point and east to Whitestone. The city had debated buying the line after trains were discontinued but in the end nothing came of it. The proposed right-of way would have served more people as it traveled through level ground rather than wetlands. These plans were kept in updated plans but the area soon developed without the expanded subways.

• Jamaica and Eastern Queens
  

  1939 IND Second System plan for eastern Queens.

  The first IND system terminated its only Queens line in Jamaica which, like Flushing, was once a separate town until Queens County was consolidated into greater New York City in 1898. Jamaica had a long history of development with improved transportation as the first railroad in the city connected it to Brooklyn in 1834. Because the city knew that the farms surrounding Jamaica would soon turn into housing the IND built the Queens Blvd line with the expectation that it would be extended in the future. The Hillside Ave branch is 4 tracks until it terminates at 179th St, unusual until you understand that the subway was intended to be extended out to Little Neck Road. There was also a set of tracks that dead-ended before Hillside Ave, originally these were intended for a subway south under Van Wyck Blvd to Rockaway Blvd. These plans were kept even with the building of Idlewild (JFK) Airport but were not shelved until Robert Moses built the Van Wyck Expressway down the same right-of-way and, ignoring the pleas from city planners, intentionally left no room for a subway along the median of the highway (Chicago had done this successfully with a subway extension out to O’Hare Airport). These extra tracks were eventually used when the MTA built the Archer Ave subway to replace the elevated tracks through Jamaica Center.

  Southern Jamaica was sparsely settled but growing quickly at this time. The only section served by rapid transit up until then was the end of the Liberty Ave elevated line which ran through Ozone Park to 119th St. The IND, which had built its Fulton Ave subway (A,C) in direct competition to the elevated Fulton Ave and Liberty Ave lines, was keen on “capturing” the Liberty Ave elevated line and incorporating it into the Fulton Ave subway (which it did). The Second System then planned to extend the line, elevated, down Liberty Ave to Sutphin Blvd where it would snake its way south and then east along 110th Ave to 180th St. Here the line would split, with one branch running along the LIRR right-of-way north and then doubling-back west to terminate at the Jamaica Center LIRR station, while the other branch continued east along Brinkerhoff Ave to Hollis Blvd, finally terminating at Springfield Blvd. This was a rather serpentine route and the plans were eventually altered so that the extension of the Fulton St subway would run east under Linden Blvd to 229th St instead.

• The Winfield Spur and 120th St
  

  1929 IND Second System plan for the Winfield Spur to the Rockaways.

  The subway known as the Winfield Spur is one of the more peculiar instances of transit planning in New York City. It is peculiar for two reasons, the first being its serpentine, meandering path through central Queens, and the second is that an actual station complete with tile tile work was constructed for the line. The concept was to kill two birds with one stone; to provide subway service to areas of central Queens such as Maspeth, Middle Village, and Glendale while also connecting the Rockaways to downtown and midtown via subway service. The area of central Queens through which the line was to run is home to many large cemeteries and because of this planners had to route the line around the cemeteries while trying to service the most number of people.

  From NYCSubway.org:

  It would have been a two track line arising from the Roosevelt Avenue station (the never-used upper level station, but also would have track connections to the main line), and curving southeasterly between 78th and 79th Sts. to Queens Blvd., then along the LIRR ROW into Garfield Avenue to 65th Place, then along 65th Place to Fresh Pond Road, and then along Fresh Pond Rd and Cypress Hills Avenue to a connection with the Central Avenue line outlined above. The line would be 2 tracks, and would be subway to 45th Avenue, then elevated to Fresh Pond Road, then subway again to Central Avenue. In looking at the map, the rationale for the circuitous route becomes a little more apparent, since it appears to skirt some large cemeteries, thus staying in the residential/commercial areas.

  Note the part about the never-used upper level station. At Roosevelt Ave on the Queens Blvd line there is a part of the station that is out of reach to regular people that is actually a single platform station for trains to terminate from the Rockaways. Additional tracks would have connected the line to the Queens Blvd line. Work on these extra tracks was completed up to 78th St and land that was taken for construction of the line was eventually turned into Frank O’Connor playground.

  After connecting up with the proposed Rockaways subway under Central Ave, the line would turn south past Woodhaven Blvd along the LIRR right-of-way. Tracks would continue to the Rockaways so that passengers could go downtown via South 4th St in Williamsburg or into midtown via the Winfield Spur. At 120th St in South Ozone Park, 2 tracks would branch east to serve southern Jamaica and Cambria Heights. The line would have cut a new road though a sparsely settled area to Linden Blvd but would have meant that now southeastern Queens had evenly spaced subway service to downtown and midtown.

  Sometime in the 1930s it was decided that the Winfield Spur was just about too ridiculous and a better connection was drawn up which would branch off the Queens Blvd line after 63rd St rather than Roosevelt Ave. The branch would head due south until it reached the LIRR junction at Rego Park. Here it would continue on to the Rockaways using the same LIRR Rockaways right-of-way. Plans for the 120th St subway were dropped at this point.

• Ft Hamilton subway and Staten Island
  

  1939 IND Second System plans for Ft Hamilton subway and tunnel to Staten Island.

  The South Brooklyn line (F,G) of the first IND system ended short after weaving its way through South Brooklyn, Park Slope, and Windsor Terrace. The line is built with 4 tracks so presumably it was expected to be extended southernly. Since it was built right up to the BMT Culver Line it was no surprise that the IND “captured” the elevated line and combined the two. But the elevated Culver line is only 3 tracks while the IND South Brooklyn is 4. This leaves the room for another branch and in the Second System the IND decided to reach out to the only borough not serviced by a subway, Staten Island.

  The Ft Hamilton/Staten Island line would have branched off from the South Brooklyn line after the Ft Hamilton Parkway stop and continue in a 4 track tunnel to Bay Ridge Ave where one branch would continue south to 86th St and the other would head west under Bay Ridge Ave, under New York harbor, to St George on Staten Island. Here the line would split and some trains would head north along the Staten Island Railroad North Shore Branch while the other would head south along the main line. The plans for this connection were not in the 1929 plan, though a proposed vehicular tunnel was present, but added in the 1939 plan. In fact plans for a train/vehicular tunnel had been proposed as far back as at least 1910! I wish I knew more about what happened to the plans for these lines as it was 30 years later that Robert Moses finally did built a connection between Staten Island and Brooklyn via the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. But true to form he left no room for rapid transit.

Conclusion
The purpose of this post was to give some context and prep your mind for the proposals to come. Much has been written about the IND Second System and I was elated when I first discovered the plans. I have to give thanks where they are due and most of my information came from these sources:

• Proposed New York City Subway expansion (1929–1940)
• IND Second System – 1929 Plan, NYCSubway.org
• Subway Expansion in Williamsburg, Waterfront Preservation Alliance
• Dreaming of the Second System, Second Ave Sagas
• Abandoned Stations, by Joseph Brennan

Also, for you maps lovers out there, you can see the full versions of the 1929 and 1939 plans below. The super-big versions of these maps are located here.

1929 IND Second System

1939 IND Second System

The futureNYCSubway

1. Introduction
2. IND Second System
3. Post War Expansion
4. The Second Ave Subway: History
5. The Second Ave Subway: To The Bronx and the Nassau Line
6. Brooklyn: Bushwick Trunk Line and Utica Ave Subway
7. Manhattan: Far West Side and Hudson Crossings, TriboroRX
8. Queens: Flushing Trunk Line and Branches
9. Staten Island: The Last Frontier

1910 IRT Expansion Plan with unbuilt Lafayette Ave subway

The futureMBTA came out of my desire to visualize what Boston’s subway would look like if all the proposed expansion projects were actually completed. After I had completed that I realized that there were many other ideas not proposed that could be and that I was now in a position to envision the future of the system. My driving belief was that Boston needed a unified plan of expansion so that when funding became available it could build each part separately that would work together with the older system but when complete would become it’s own system.

When I came to New York I was pleasantly surprised to find that this thinking had been part of the mass transit planning in the city for over 80 years. Unlike Boston, New York had a long history of subway planning and expansion and a much more devoted base of subway buffs to dream about the future. One thing I’m not going to do is give such a detailed history of the NYC Subway system as there are many great websites already established that cover this aspect thoroughly. Rather, I am just going to lay out my plans and any history to put them into context.

This is just the introduction to a series of posts I plan on writing explaining the history of subway expansion in NYC, first with an analysis of the famous IND Second System, a close look at the long history of the Second Ave Subway and my first new map of the SAS System, and finally my plans for new lines into Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island.

2nd Ave 1947 Plan

The futureNYCSubway

1. Introduction
2. IND Second System
3. Post War Expansion
4. The Second Ave Subway: History
5. The Second Ave Subway: To The Bronx and the Nassau Line
6. Brooklyn: Bushwick Trunk Line and Utica Ave Subway
7. Manhattan: Far West Side and Hudson Crossings, TriboroRX
8. Queens: Flushing Trunk Line and Atlantic Ave Express Lines
9. Staten Island: The Last Frontier

A map from Samuel Wyner

I just posted some more fantastic read submissions to the futureMBTA. Head over and check them out. Great work guys, keep them coming!

The only Personal Rapid Transit line I need.

PRT Cars in Minority Report via beconfused.com

Before I rant on I want to make on caveat which is that light fixed-gruideway transit is excellent as a more affordable option for getting a few people from point A to point B, or Terminal A to Terminal B, since they are great for airports. But this isn’t PRT in the sense I’m talking about it.

My Personal Subway System

The idea is simple: Take the efficiency of mass transit and combine it with the rugged individualism of the American spirit. PRT systems are usually based on the idea that while the automobile is great for getting one or a few people from point A to point B, when millions of automobiles all try to get to different point As and point Bs that the current system of roads breaks down. The answer is always some sort of fixed tramway system where everyone has their own vehicle which will be driven automatically so traffic will become a thing of the past (oh traffic, you eternal evil!) The more advanced systems have the ability of allowing a vehicle to attach and detach from the fixed system and be driven along conventional roads. This feature would be beneficial since it would free people from only being able to go where the system existed.

PRT on a fixed-guideway via LightRailNow.org

PRT is a laughably complex system. Oh, computers can handle the traffic! People, computers are boxes of metal and plastic that only do something when instructed by a human. What this means is no matter what system we build it will still be at the hands of a person (and given how technology progresses, fewer and fewer persons). Another major problem with such a system (and in my opinion traffic engineering in general) is that it strives to take a large number of individuals, all doing something slightly different, and boil them down to a number. We are not numbers (fight the system yo!) A traffic engineer will look at a road with cars on it and only see the cars, the lanes, and the number of cars per hour in those lanes. He doesn’t see the people and because of this he doesn’t design the roads for the way people actually use them.

PRT Fantasy

The empty People Mover of Detroit

When I hear someone mention Personal Rapid Transit all I think of is, “We already got cars!”

Since I have much more free time now I am looking forward to getting back to blogging on a more regular basis. Also look for a new blog redesign coming… eventually. I keep this site as a continual work in progress and have been working on a new design for some time now.

Also upcoming for 2010:

• If you liked the FutureMBTA then you will love the FutureMTA. Since moving to NYC 4+ years ago I’ve been playing around with creating an expanded version of the NYC subway. I doubt I will create a whole new website for it but who knows at this point.
• Robert Moses Google Maps for the entire city. This was a project I had been close to finishing earlier this year but a hard drive failure set me back a bit and I lost heart afterwards.
• New photography. If you follow my Flickr you probably have noticed that I haven’t updated that in a long time as well. The reason being is I’ve spent the last few months shooting only with my father’s 30 year old 35mm camera. I spent the time trying to find a new voice since I’ve gotten tired of shooting architecture/urban. While exploring the camera I really pushed myself to try things I wasn’t used to, like shooting people and shooting self portraits. Out of this came what I hope is my next great project, something that will actually take years to complete. More about this further into the year when I get some stuff set up.
• Music. I have to admit I was a little let down with music in 2009. There just wasn’t a whole lot out there that really inspired me. That isn’t to say there wasn’t a lot of good music but rather there wasn’t a lot of music that really pushed the envelope. I’m really hoping that 2010, the new year and the new decade, will bring some really exciting new sounds. I will do my best to bring to you what I find. This is a challenge to myself.

I wish you all a happy new year and I am happy to be back sharing my thoughts and cool findings with you all.

But taking a step back, one realizes that there are miles of unused subway tracks that could be used for new service or part-time (i.e. rush hour) service all throughout the system. While expanding service along the Culver Line is a fantastic idea (not to mention much needed), why stop there? Just this past June the MTA experimented with express 4 train service in the Bronx at rush hour. The results of that program have not been made public but if it proved successful it could open the door for much improved service across the city that would not cost too much more to the cash strapped MTA.

F Express to Coney Island

On the table already, the F Express would, for now, only serve Brooklyn south of Church Ave, stopping at 18th Ave, Kings Highway, Ave X, Van Sicklen Ave, W.8th St, and finally Stillwell Ave. Due to there being only a single express track service would be only at rush hour, towards the city in the AM and towards Brooklyn in the PM.

Because of reconstruction on the Culver Viaduct the double track express track from Bergen St to Church Ave will not be available to use. One reconstruction is complete, however, there could be more permanent F Express service, with stops at Bergen St (which would have to be rebuilt) and 7th Ave.

V Local to Metropolitan Ave

In 1968 the MTA opened what was known as the Chrystie Street Connection where a new subway tunnel was built to connect the IND 6th Ave line with the Manhattan Bridge (allowing the B and D lines to travel to Coney Island). A second part of this connection was another tunnel that is now unused which connects the IND 6th Ave line to the BMT Jamaica line over the Williamsburg Bridge. For a short time in the late 1960s there was service from Broadway Junction to 57th St/6th Ave, known as the K line. Due to the depopulation of the areas this new line served at the time, the line was ended after just 10 years of service.

With these areas now seeing new waves of immigrants and then artists (read: gentrification) the neighborhoods along the JMZ have seen an increase in ridership which will most likely continue. Right now the area is only served by a new trains, the J, the M (which is cut back to Myrtle Ave at night), the Z (which may or may not be cut entirely), and the L (which is becoming more crowded by the day). To better serve this growing area the V Local should be rerouted through the unused section of tunnel to replace the M, which would either be eliminated or cut back to part-time service (even more so). The V would terminate at Metropolitan Ave in Queens

W Express to Astoria, Bay Parkway

In the 1980s there was rush hour service along the express track from Astoria Blvd to Queens Plaza along the BMT Astoria Line (now the N/W). With the recent and steady influx of new residents and housing construction that continues despite the recession, the area would be better served with rush hour W Express service.

On the other side of the line, the W currently terminates at Whitehall St. The W would then be extended to Bay Parkway in Bensonhurst and would run along the single express track, making stops at 9th Ave and 62nd St as well. The service would run only at rush hour. The part-time M service would continue running local, as is.

http://futurembta.com

Much of Kassel was destroyed in the war so there are three distinct kinds of buildings in the city: the first are the pre-War buildings which are made with brick and are more earth toned in color. These appear to be from the late 19th century and if you look closely you can see the scars in the stone work from the bombings. The second are the buildings that were rebuilt after the war. Everyone has the same decorative style but they use stucco instead of brick for the body of the building which gives them an almost plasticy feel, like these were mass produced knock offs (which in fact they were). The last kind of buildings are the modern ones. These range from classic Bauhause to poor-man’s Bauhause, from Soviet housing blocks to elegant towers-in-the-park. All these buildings are built literally right next to one another, seemingly everywhere. It makes for quite the juxtaposition.

The neighborhoods out near the big park which I walked around are very nice, Beverly Hills nice, with giant mansions, both old and modern, giant trees and nice cars where ever you look. The area from the ICE station to the city center, West and Wehlheiden, are a lot like the Back Bay with very nice side streets, large townhouses and attractive apartment houses. Here is where parts of the University is and where you find the mix of old, rebuilt, and modern buildings I talked about. The area along the tram line feels very much like Comm. Ave in Boston as it travels above ground near BU and through Brighton.

Leaving this area, which is mostly residential, we enter the city center. The nicest parts of the city are behind us and it’s all downhill from here (metaphorically and geographically speaking). The downtown, or Mitte, was pretty well destroyed during the war and the only buildings that remained were the major churches and the Rathaus, or city hall (well, sorta like a city hall). The rest of this center area is all modern and pretty dreary. There isn’t much character and street after street of mall stores, of which there are many duplicates of each, wear on the soul. There is a central plaza area, Königsplatz, which is where they hold all the festivals and where you can sit and watch people, but the place is pretty soul less (not as much as Government Center, however.)

Just north of the downtown is the dirty area of the city where the Soviet block housing can be found and where I’ve noticed most of the Middle Eastern immigrants live. There isn’t much here and it’s pretty depressing to travel through, but all the trams go this way so you have to see it. This area doesn’t have a name on the map but this is where the city splits to the north, Nord Holland is one way which is where the main University is (the main drag, Hollandische Strasse, feels very much like the BU stretch of Comm. Ave) and there are some cool bars up this way. This area seemed to survive the war ok but it being so close to the major industry and rail lines it isn’t as desirable as the West area. Just to the east is Wesertor and Iringshauser, both middle class areas which are residential but nothing to write about (seriously, I can’t think of the words to describe the mediocrity).

Here are a few more pictures. More to come.

 

From Wikipedia:

The Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe is a unique park in Kassel, Germany. The nestor of the modern historic preservation, Georg Dehio (1850–1932), described the park as “possibly the most grandiose combination of landscape and architecture that the Baroque dared anywhere” (“vielleicht das Grandioseste, was irgendwo der Barock in Verbindung von Architektur und Landschaft gewagt hat.”).[1] The area of the park is 2.4 square kilometres (590 acres), making it the largest European hillside park, and second largest park on a mountain slope in the world. Construction of the Bergpark, or “mountain park”, began in 1696 and took about 150 years.

Just got back from an epic walk. I took the tram out to the ICE station where I arrived last week and walked up the hill to the Wilhelmshöhe, a giant park that was once the estate of the King of Westphalia, Jérôme Bonaparte (brother of Napoleon). It is built into the hill (or mountain really) and is landscaped like only a rich 18th century King could afford. It was so lavish that is bordered on the ridiculous; the entire hillside was designed with waterfalls, ponds, gardens, glens, open fields, and landscape architecture that looked like it was out of The Lord of The Rings. There was a castle to the side and an aqueduct to bring water to this giant man made waterfall system. Then there was the museum, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, which was the dude’s mansion.

I walked up the hill to the Herkules monument which is this statue of Herkules on top of this pedestal overlooking a massive man-made waterfall system that feeds water down to this grotto. It was ridiculous. You can see the whole thing walking around town since it is at the top of the mountain to the west of the city center.

They designed the entire thing to have one massive line of sight from the Herkules statue through the museum, down the Wilhelmshoher boulevard into a focal point that creates an acute axis with another major park, one which I haven’t yet explored but looks sorta like the Boston Public Gardens. The whole experience is quite amazing. I figured it was just a tourist trap (which it kinda was) but it turned out to be one of the most lavish and wonderful parks I have ever experienced. Central Park is downright utilitarian compared to this.

On my way back I took a bus which I thought would get me back into the city but instead dropped me off on the back side of the mountain, requiring me to walk a few miles down the only road into town before I caught another bus to the tram station. The tram, the 3, goes from this park through the city center to the city line where I get off and take a bus to the town I am living in. I found out taking the tram it’s entire length what the nice parts of town are and what the dirty parts are.

Kassel, Germany

View Larger Map

31.May

I’m sitting outside in the Frankfurt train station waiting for the ICE, the high speed rail, to bring me to Kassel, where I assume I will meet up with my host mother. I wasn’t able to connect with her when I arrived at the airport, though I left a message which I hope she can figure out.
The flight was actually much shorter than I thought it would be. I have been eating crap food this past week and it has followed me here; on the plane and when I got of the S-Bahn train in Frankfurt I saw a giant banner for Burger King. Oh to be an American.
I wanted to write this down before I forgot but when I got off the plan in Frankfurt we were bussed to the terminal via a route that reminded me exactly of the opening scene in Half-Life (1) where you are on the tram, listening to the announcements as you pass various operations and workers, through large spaces and into dank tunnels until a final destination that turns out to be the first in a series of automatic gates through which to walk until you find a nondescript door, one which seems like it should me manned but is not, and are flung out into civilization.
*
I fell asleep on the train and woke up probably 10 min before the Kassel stop. I got off and called F. West but got her machine. I realized I had no idea what to do so I called my Prof. and he biked over where he introduced me to F. West who was waiting for me. I apparently told her 3:30 which I realize would have been correct had I gotten the train I missed.

She took me back to her house via the tram system and tried to communicate with me which was futile at best and embarrassing at worst. The city seems really cool, small and suburban in many parts. It seems like a more urban Watertown or Belmont. There are some fantastic building which I hope to take pictures of along with some standard post-War slab housing which is still way nicer than anything in the states of the same design. We got back to her place which is a long walk to a bus which goes to the end of a tram line. The area really reminds me of Brighton, if Brighton had more farms.
*
I think I remember a friend of mine who lived in Berlin for a while telling something about the toilets here but it didn’t sink in until I had to use one. They are different than American ones, they have this flat bottom so when you crap it just sits there until you flush. Not liking that.

01.Juni

Got out early today but will have to get up earlier tomorrow to make it to the bus on time. Classes start at 8:15 and will go until 1pm with a few breaks. That seems intense.
*
I met a bunch of people today on our field trip to a couple of German towns. One dude by the name of Sam, we hit if off well and tried out or German on one another. It was nice to communicate with someone. I am a bit frustrated here living with two people who cannot communicate with me but try hard (my host mother and another student, Fernanda). I feel bad for not trying. I think I am still having that problem where I want to say something but over think it, that is I am thinking with my English and trying to translate. But my German is so rusty I’m not sure what to do.
It also felt great to get out and use the little German I had. Walking around, trying to figure out what my Prof was saying. There is a group of Brazilian grad students here (whose German is much better than mine, of which Fernanda is part. I am hoping that when I am placed I will be with a few other people on my level so I won’t feel so intimidated.

Seeing Germany was strange. There are all these little towns with these funky buildings that I have seen many times in movies, images, or even Disney World but when I see the real thing I am underwhelmed. The first place we went was this little village, Münden. It was nice to see a real town but because of the holiday everything was closed and there weren’t many people around. It really felt like Troy, but not as depressing. More on that later. Münden was having a celebration for some doctor who lived there a few hundred years ago. The streets were small and pleasant and there was a large central square where we got food and drink. It was my first experience of European public spaces.
The train system here is amazing. It is literally how I dream it is in America. I think I actually wrote down some ideas in my notebook a long time ago dealing with regional commuter rail systems that connect two large cities but piggy back a larger high-speed rail system. It so simple and efficient! What is wrong with America? The trains are nice too, they feel more like light rail. The entire time I was thinking about how different the MBTA was, how much of a dump that system is.
The city we went to next, Gottingen, was a classic old city surrounded by a wall that was turned into a park with a ring road. But the first thing that struck me leaving the train station was how many people bike. There was a bike parking lot the size of a regular American car parking lot FULL of bikes. Not only that most weren’t tied to anything, just their back wheels were locked. As Sam figured, there isn’t much incentive to steal a bike when everyone has one. In the streets it was the same. It got to the point where it was ridiculous the amount of bikes but I guess it is only ridiculous to me.
The one thing that really struck me about the town and city we visited was how much it reminded me of older post-industrial towns in the US that I’ve been to, mainly in the Northeast. The first town reminded me of Fitchburg for some reason and the city reminded me of Camden, ME, though much larger. It struck me that these cities probably didn’t have a massive economy, maybe a university or local tourism, but still looked fantastic and seemed to be great places to live. In America those cities in the Northeast are shit holes even if they have a university.
I have to blame this on the land use differences. In America land is so cheap that if you don’t need it you can afford to just leave it to rot. Land here is so much more expensive that is makes sense to have everything work.

I made special care to see how the buildings related to the streets here. The streets are narrower in many places, at least in Gottingen, but all of the buildings were a similar scale of 4 to 5 stories. The parking was also interesting, where the streets are wider the cars park perpendicular to the sidewalk. This all made for a more walkable city. I was trying to image this same thing happening in America. Maybe a section of streets in Brooklyn could be closed off of narrowed to make them more walkable, thereby creating a central downtown experience. I want to do more with this idea.

03.Juni

Second day of classes and I am getting a bit better with my German, so much so that when I type in English it comes out in German grammar! Speaking of which I finally got online at the institute so I won’t need to go to an internet cafe. The German keyboards are different, as one would imagine, but they change the Y and the Z key which totally throws me off. Tzpeing is a challenge.
I walked around with Sam today in the downtown shopping area looking for food and the school books. We tried to speak in German but it was pretty obvious we were American so a few people spoke in English to us. We were talking in English and I noticed a few turned heads. While talking about Sty Town I actually heard a guy behind us comment on our conversation. I think he was actually from NYC. Small world. I also noticed a few hipsters walking around which made me laugh. I wonder if they hang out at the “New York” club (that’s the name on the big billboard).
The days here seem longer but it is probably just because it is June and the days ARE longer. But getting up at 6:30 to start class at 8:15 makes the day seem longer too. We get out at 12:45 and then there are post-class sessions in the computer lab or a film or whatever. I am enjoying class but I am going to have to start bringing a snack since there isn’t anything to eat around the institute. There is a woman who comes in with food but that is during class so that doesn’t really help.
*
It’s funny because I see so many people here who look like people I see in America but I have to remind myself that the people in America look the way they do because they have ancestors from here. Now I can spot a German American when I get home. I’ve also noticed a good number of Middle Eastern people which I kinda expected but I wonder how the Germans are dealing with it. I’ve probably only seen a handful of black people, including the dude from NY.
But all and all the Germans I’ve interacted with have been nice. I remember some European I talked to once commented on how people in America, in retail, are fake polite, that is they say “How are you doing” when they actually don’t care. I noticed a similar fake friendliness here (which sounds funny as hell to hear the same perky “Hallo!” every few seconds), but I don’t mind it.
*
After exploring the downtown area I’ve found that there isn’t much past first glance. The downtown shopping area has many stores that are identical to American malls. In fact the only real difference is that it’s outside and there are trams that run down the street. Kind of a shame that there isn’t anything really different. Then on the back streets there are just boring office or apartment buildings. If the weather is nice I am going to work my way in circles around the Mitte area.

04.Juni

I feel like I’m picking up this German faster and faster, but I am also working way harder than I did even this last semester. We went over the Accusative case today using a children’s book (which was bazaar) and I think that is probably the best way to learn. I am thinking of going to the bookstore downtown and just picking up a few kids books, though I’m sure I’ll get some looks.
*
I’ve come to the realization that this town is kinda lame. I walked around more today and found the more dirty parts where there are some cheap hotels and clubs, the latter I hope to check out on the weekends. There isn’t much outside the downtown area and what’s down there is your standard mall shops.
The thing that does blow my mind is how you can see the country side from the higher areas of the city, as if the views were designed that way. I’m not used to that in America, though to be fair I’ve only lived in large cities where that isn’t really possible. Metro Kassel has around 250,000 people, metro Boston 4,000,000 and metro NYC has around 20,000,000. There are places where you crest the hill and can see large windmills off in the distance, which is bad ass as hell and somewhat romantic.
*
When i use the internet I need to remember that there is a 6 hour time difference and when I check my email after class most of my friends back home are just getting up.
*
After a full day of German language learning my brain is fried. I don’t even want to talk in German anymore. I need to start being more social with my host mother but I just don’t have the Ayn Rand.
*
They have 2 cent Euros; I find that ridiculous. They also have 2€ coins which I find really smart; $1 coins never made much headway but I wonder if $2 coins would?

Note: Yes, I’m taking tons of pictures but I am only going to post a few small ones here since the Netbook I’m using isn’t ideal for processing images.